We’ll call it: “What the Heck is Matthew Yglesias Babbling
About?” For today’s episode,
read this:
The default state of things in the world is for the levers of
state to be dominated by the people who already possess social and
economic power in order to protect and expand their sphere of
privilege.
Conceding the point for sake of argument.
The contention of progressive political reform is that it’s
possible to organize, educate, and mobilize sufficient quantities
of people to overcome the power of the few and instead implement
policies that benefit the many.
This is an excellent insight into how idealistic (and
historically disabled) progressive political reformers are. Despite
the aforementioned (and justified!) skepticism about the nature of
politicians, there is a categorical fascination with how the
government might somehow come up with the best possible solution to
the problems of the many. Yet what do we know about governments?
They are inherently noncompetitive. The larger they get, the less
responsive and precise they can be. These are all qualities that
run against the grain of anything we know about good
decision-making.
Further, if we understand that those who are in power are only
trying to protect and expand their sphere of privilege, then why
would we cede to them more control of our lives,
particularly the poor?
Then this:
…Which is to say that of course effective progressive
political leaders need to be - and, historically, have been - good
at “playing the game” but they’ve also been good at cutting through
the smokescreen and refocusing attention. That’s how Bill Clinton
managed to survive and even thrive during
impeachment.
If there was one thing Bill Clinton was not good at,
it was cutting through the smokescreen, primarily because he drew
the smokescreen so often (Wag the Dog, anyone?). He was a
disaster for progressives because of this. He sold them
out every time he used his power recklessly. The reason that the
Democrats cannot attest to a strong leader in the White House for
the past 20 years is because of the man’s failure to advance the
goals of his party. In this regard, Barack Obama is entirely
right.
I think his point was that the right tends to employ more
deceit than the left. If that’s true, I wonder why most liberals
don’t just refer to themselves as out and out socialists?
